Thursday, February 26, 2009

Sean Hannity's Community Calls For Armed Revolt

Via DougJ, an astonishing piece from a thread at Hannity.com. Yes, this is a participant in a social network, so we cannot blame Sean for it.

But what is Sean going to do about it?

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To make sure he's not misunderstood, here's the rest of the post from poll-creator "centerscroll"...
There's a lot of talk on this board about armed revolt [cricket: really?]. I am curious what form of such a revolt the revolutionaries would prefer. I can see a few scenarios:

1. Military Coup - The military deposes the government and declares itself in charge. A junta rules until democracy can be restored, similar to what happened in Pakistan.

2. Armed Rebellion - The fed up civilian population attacks their enemies forcibly. They take to the streets, or wherever they need to go, to ultimately depose the government and install one that follows their own ideals.

3. War for secession - Individual states try to secede and perhaps ultimately must arm to do it.

It's hard for me to see how #1 and #2 could realistically lead to a more constitutional system. Unlike #3, these scenarios are quite different from the American Revolution, which was closer to a secession. The problem in #2 especially is that there is no clear "us" or "them." Since people of different political persuasions are literally intermixed throughout the land, it would require things like killing your own neighbor if they disagree with you politically. While that could certainly work in terms of winning power, it would seem to contradict a lot of constitutional principles, which would presumably be the whole point of such a rebellion to begin with.

#1 is a little more orderly since the military effectively just lops off the governing class, but it also does not appear to lead any kind of constitutional system. Both #1 and #2 most likely lead to strongman type governments like Saddam Hussein in Iraq, where the guy with the most guns ultimately prevails and decides he's the best leader for the rest of eternity. We see these kinds of revolutions in Africa from time to time.

Therefore, #3 seems most realistic, since it does present an opportunity for more homogeneous states to sort of capitalize on their homogeneity. However, it would likely lead to mass migrations of the minority partisans out of the rebel states. Of course, that may be fine with those states.

Yet it seems that the ultimate paradox in any rebellion for freedom from within is that the ultimate goal is to impose the will of the rebels on everyone else through force. It seems the very foundation of representative democracy is ****tered if we accept that we exchange the the power of ideas for the power of the sword upon each other.

Nevertheless, I am still very interested in your own preferred form of revolt.
This is insane.

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